


Crosses and Squares

by Wallwalker



Category: inFAMOUS (Video Game)
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, Angst, Community: 1sentencefic, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Partner Betrayal, Post-Apocalypse, Redemption, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zeke and Cole. The end of the world, and all the points before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crosses and Squares

**Author's Note:**

> One-Sentence ficlets for the DW community [1sentencefic](http://1sentencefic.dreamwidth.org/). The claim was for Zeke from InFAMOUS. Any number of these might end up growing up to be actual stories one of these days, once I have time to work on them. Major spoilers for both games and both karma paths. The timeline gets a little mixed up (unsurprising, considering the canon.)

1\. Tea  
"I don't give a damn what that woman said," Zeke comments, making a face at the tumbler with the thick white layer of sugar stubbornly sitting on the bottom, "iced tea ain't iced tea 'less it's _sweet._ "

2\. Forgiveness  
"What you did can't just be _made square,_ " Cole says halfway through the hike back to Empire City, when he's tired enough that he doesn't resist Zeke giving him a shoulder to lean on, and Zeke ignores it and just keeps walking because he doesn't know what to say anymore.

3\. Hurt  
It's kinda funny, he thinks as the last jolt of electricity arcs from Cole's hands and goes right through him - and he's surprisingly lucid, now that he knows this is how he's gonna die - how he used to think that static shocks hurt.

4\. Time  
Seeing Zeke again after all that time, only to watch the son of a bitch betray him - his best friend, the person he'd died to help in another life - made him feel sick to his stomach, like he'd just wound up and punched him in the gut.

5\. Silence  
Half the time these days Cole's just quiet, doesn't even look at Zeke when he talks, and Zeke knows he oughta just shut up too, but he can't do it because he can't stand the silent treatment.

6\. Flower  
Trish liked growing flowers in little pots in the windows of the little apartment that she and Cole lived in; Zeke could see them even from the street, ten stories up, bright yellow against the brick.

7\. Touch  
Zeke can feel the power below Cole's skin, and it makes his hands tingle; it takes a lot of trust to even stay close to him, knowing what that energy could do to him if Cole didn't hold it back.

8\. Sex  
"Say what you like, brother," Zeke said, finishing off another beer, "but the simple fact is, if it wasn't for droppin' your name now and then, I'd never get laid."

9\. Envy  
It was gnawin' at his stomach, watching his best friend run around like some kinda hero, and if he was gonna be honest with himself he'd been looking for a chance to get the same kinda power for a long time.

10\. Fire  
"The hell you doin' with a woman like that, Cole?" Zeke muttered to himself, watching as Nix disappeared into a puff of smoke - sure, she wasn't bad looking and she wasn't wearin' much, but messing with girls like that was like playin' with fire, hot for a while but painful for a long time after.

11\. After  
Cole's quiet after he wakes up, and he still looks exhausted, but Zeke can see that some of the trouble's gone out of his eyes, and he's pretty damned happy to see that.

12\. Share  
"Well," he finally says as he gets up, "I ain't gonna make you come back... but if you do, there's a couple of my beers with your name on 'em back at my place."

13\. Kiss  
He thinks for a moment of cheering as loudly and obnoxiously as he can when Cole kisses Trish, but the dirty look they both give him as the priest is saying the words changes his mind in a hurry; geez, he thinks, is he that easy to read?

14\. Thoughts  
"I think," Zeke finally says, when Cole's rambling finally comes to a halt, "that you need to get some sleep, brother, or else we won't be able to keep moving tomorrow."

15\. Mine  
"No, I don't want you to leave," Cole says, not _looking_ at him, staring down at the floor with his forehead resting against his hand, "because you're the only goddamned thing I have left."

16\. Lecture  
"I skipped that class most of the time anyway," Zeke says with a laugh, "got sick of the stupid old man givin' the same lecture over and over - how'd you stand it, anyway?"

17\. Gentle  
"You can't keep getting into these stupid barfights, Zeke," Trish says, her hands gentle on the bruise on his face, and if it had been anyone else he would've said something tough, but it was Trish, so he just nodded meekly.

18\. Lust  
"The hot girl in the red dress," Cole says weakly, stirring, and it's a damn strange time to remember _that_ night - they'd done a few crazy things before Cole had met Trish, he'd put it that way - but Zeke doesn't give a shit as long as it keeps him awake, so he nods, keeping his eyes locked on his best friend's eyes (they looked fine so far, but he wasn't taking any chances.) 

19\. Hollow  
Kessler talks like a man who's got nothing left, like he's completely empty, and Zeke almost feels sorry for him; he wants to ask what the hell happened, but there's a nasty look in his eyes every time he even glances Zeke's way, and it's hard to bring himself to say anything when he's around.

20\. Forever  
"I know I walked away once and I'm sorry," he says, putting a hand on Cole's shoulder - and that's a hell of a leap of faith, and he's not sure he ought to be makin' it - "but I'm here now and I'm here for good, and you can bet on that."

21\. Breeze  
Ash and dust and cinders blew in the gentle breeze over New Marais - Zeke didn't want to think about what was in that dust, but hell, it had been the best shot they'd had.

22\. Dark  
Zeke was still awake, letting Cole sleep and watching the darkness, scanning for the telltale orange glow that would mean that the Beast was coming.

23\. Hostile  
There's something cold and hostile in Cole's eyes as he turns away, and Zeke knows he's about one or two wrong words away from a punch or worse, and for once his better judgement takes over and he stays still as his former best friend walks away.

24\. Open  
"We can't stay out in the open," Zeke says, grabbing Cole's arm - he feels a small shock as he touches him, but nothing he hasn't learned to handle over the past few months - and pulling him along through the burned-out ruins.

25\. Shelter  
Cole's too broken to do much - still torn up over finding his little girls - so Zeke builds the little lean-to that they rest in that night from the half-destroyed remnants of the city, and stays beside him until he finally relaxes.

26\. You  
"If _you_ had come to my wedding," Kessler says before he turns away, quiet enough that Zeke's not sure he meant for him to hear it at all, like he thinks he's knocked out from the jolt, "I would've thrown you out into the street."

27\. Fall  
"Hell _no_ I'm not jumping across there," Zeke yells back as Cole waves his arms at him across the gap between buildings, "unless you're gonna swim down an' fish me out when I fall!"

28\. Summer  
"Man, you remember that summer we spent at New Marais," Zeke said, trying to keep Cole awake - he'd taken a pretty bad hit on the head, and havin' amazing lightning powers didn't mean a man couldn't get a damned concussion, and there wasn't a hospital around that wasn't a burned-out shell - "remember how we went to that party that your old buddy was throwing and somebody dared you to climb up the cathedral with one hand tied behind your back and you actually did it?"

29\. Candy  
Not much prepares a man for walking into a door and being ambushed by two adorable little girls, both of them demanding that he give them some of the chocolates he'd brought last time, and neither of them willing to take that he'd forgotten to bring any as an answer.

30\. Silk  
"You don't have the guts to go talk to her," Cole says, smirking as he looks at the pretty blonde in the silk dress out of the corner of his eye, so of course Zeke has to go over and prove him wrong, right?

31\. Wedding  
"For the last time, Zeke," Cole says, fighting back a smile, "you are _not_ dressing like Elvis at my wedding."

32\. Vows  
"I'm not gonna let it end this way, Zeke, I promise you that," Cole said over his best friend's body - he couldn't even figure out how he'd died, didn't see any wounds; it was like he'd just worn himself out saving Cole's life.

33\. Tears  
Cole had cried when Trish had died, and when his girls had died; when he found Zeke slumped over at their makeshift camp, looking like he'd fallen asleep, he'd wanted to cry for him too, but he'd used up all the tears he'd had to shed.

34\. Family  
The girls always cheer when Uncle Zeke comes over, probably because he's the one that gives them the loud toys - the ones that make their daddy call him up in the middle of the night so that he can share the pain of being woken up by loud noises every few minutes.

35\. Future  
"I can't just... let it go on like this," Zeke says weakly to the sardonic voice on the other end, staring helplessly at the coffin behind him, "not without trying... hell, I don't know, _something,_ I mean you've gotta know he deserves better than this!"

36\. Spring  
He had taken his godchildren to the zoo on the first day of spring - it's the last spring they had before the Beast came to Empire City, and Zeke's at least glad they had a good one, that it started with him making up crazy stories about hippos and tigers, because damned if he really knew anything about animals.

37\. Water  
"Don't walk into any puddles," Cole mutters as Zeke half-carries him back into the city, and that's enough to get a smile outta him, at least.

38\. Satiate  
It's just the two of them, walking alone in that wasteland, and after a while things just... follow through to their natural conclusion, he figures; really, the main thing he wonders is why the hell it took so long.

39\. Snow  
If Nix was too hot to handle, then Kuo was way too cold and professional - like a bad snowstorm after the fact, he thought, and shook his head, wondering why Cole could never find normal girls anymore.

40\. Stress  
It's tough just to _breathe_ now, and his heart pounds like crazy just with the effort of standing up - he's hacking his goddamned lungs out whenever he talks, and the pain in his bones is getting worse and worse, and he couldn't even tell Cole because he couldn't let him know that the same thing that everyone else was suffering from was killing him too.

41\. Pen  
He was bored as hell, with no best friend to bother and no real jobs coming in - he didn't have much else to do, besides throwing his cheap pen at the ceiling and seeing if he could make it stick.

42\. Reflection  
He was staring at the mirror that Cole had just broken in his rage, and as ridiculous as it was, all he could seem to think as he stared back at five reflections of himself was that he was surprised he hadn't lost any weight, considering how long he'd had to live off of practically nothing.

43\. Innocence  
The son of a bitch had no idea, Kessler realized then, and he wanted to tell Zeke what had happened, what the two of them had done to save each other's lives when they were trapped in that hell... but no, he'd _betrayed_ him, he didn't deserve the truth.

44\. Protect  
"Guess I didn't do too great of a job of that after all," Zeke muttered, putting one hand on the coffin, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

45\. Happiness  
The wedding was cheap because Trish and Cole had splurged on the reception; the cake was fantastic, and so was the beer and the music, and looking at how happy they were was just makin' Zeke feel like there might be somethin' right in that crazy world after all.

46\. Shower  
He's trying not to be a complete jerk about it, once they get to a decent motel, but he can't help but sing in the shower, loud enough that he deserves the dirty looks Cole gives him when he finally steps out.

47\. Concern  
"I don't believe this," Zeke says, glaring at Kessler's back, "you're callin' him a failure because... because he has feelings, because he cares 'bout somebody?"

48\. Story  
"I can't believe you told my kids that story, man," Cole says, but he's laughing as he says it, and Zeke just shrugs and leans back in the old recliner and makes no apologies whatsoever.

49\. Listen  
"They're in my head, all these dead people," Cole muttered at one point, "and I wish I could make you hear them, Zeke, so you'd understand what you tried to jump into," and all Zeke can do is keep walking, because his lungs hurt too damn much to answer by then.

50\. Shout  
"You don't give a damn about anybody or anything," Zeke yelled at the hooded figure, fists clenched and ready to take a swing - and then he was on the floor, arms and legs convulsing and body feeling like it was on fucking fire, and Kessler's standing over him and staring down, not even bothering to look mad anymore.


End file.
